The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown

by Paul Taylor

Social Trends in American Life: Findings from the General Social Survey since 1972

edited by Peter V. Marsden

Paul Taylor of the Pew Research Center argues that surveys of public opinion are both necessary for democracy and based on equality. His The Next America opens: Opinion surveys allow the public to speak for itself. Each person has an equal chance to be heard. Each opinion is given an …

Double Down: Game Change 2012

by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann

The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election

by John Sides and Lynn Vavreck

Here’s our current political situation: • A Democratic president has twice won the popular vote, both times by comfortable margins. • In the Senate, Democrats (with two independents) hold 55 percent of the seats, receiving nearly that share of the votes in their most recent races. • Republican now have …

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don’t

by Nate Silver

The Physics of Wall Street: A Brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable

by James Owen Weatherall

Nate Silver called every state correctly in the last presidential race, and was wrong about only one in 2008. In 2012 he predicted Obama’s total of the popular vote within one tenth of a percent of the actual figure. His powers of prediction seemed uncanny. In his early and sustained prediction of an Obama victory, he was ahead of most polling organizations and my fellow political scientists. But buyers of his book, The Signal and the Noise, now a deserved best seller, may be in for something of a surprise.